September 6, 2010
118_Discourse Tumbles
_There is a room. In that room is a table with ten people sitting around it, passing pictures back and forth to each other. Sometimes a person will take a photo, make a copy of it, and then pass the original back. That way both of those people have that photo. In time, each person’s collection begins to grow. Sometimes a new photo is introduced to be passed around.
_You approach the table. You cannot hear what any of the people are saying, but you can see all the pictures they are passing around at will. Sometimes, rarely, someone will pass a sheet of paper around with a short piece of text on it. Sometimes it is a statement, sometimes it is a question. If it is a question, only the others at the table can answer it.
_You stand behind one person for a long time. You look at every picture they pass around, you look at every picture they copy. You read through the short pieces of text that they write and, even though they cannot know your answer, you answer the questions that they pose. You stay there for a long time getting to know their interests. You walk away from the table.
_Weeks later, when you meet that person at a party, you realize you know absolutely nothing about them.
_The above metaphor is, of course, in reference to the blog site Tumblr, which advertises itself as the easiest way to blog. The idea of Tumblr is to be, in the words of The New York Times, “to weblogs what text messages are to email – short, to the point, and direct.” And while most of Tumblr’s reviews say the same thing, praising its efficiency, the statistics that Tumblr provides on their about page is telling.
_”The average Tumblr user creates 14 original posts each month, and reblogs 3. Half of those posts are photos. The rest are split between text, links, quotes, music, and video.”, Tumblr tells us. That means that in one month, the average Tumblr poster will post only seven original, non-picture posts. Of those seven, four will contain links, quotes or other material that is not original to the poster.
_The point is, that while Tumblr might be the internet’s text messaging, in regards to its ease, it’s also the internet’s text messaging in regards to the fact that it is not discursive. It’s not that we don’t love Girls Got a Face Like Murder’s blog, it’s that we’re not sure what the point of reading it is.
_The anger over the supposed “Mosque” in the vague vicinity of Ground Zero underscores the propensity of Americans to latch on to misinformed key words and rail against them. It’s the latest instance in a trend in which small amounts of information or charged catch-phrases have riled the anger of millions.
_While Tumblr doesn’t insight anger, nor does it have a political agenda, it does feed into the text-message mindset, that an emotion, a political idea or a personality can be summed up in a reblogged picture from someone else’s Tubmlr account. After enough reblogging, a person truly could believe that it’s a “Mosque” and get angry about it. The original source, the original intent is lost, and the anger turns into a campaign slogan that gets reblogged by the others sitting at the table, while those of us watching them have no ability to comment.
- Kid
